News flash: Florida bp throws the p25 switch.

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SOFA_KING

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NEWS FLASH: FLORIDA BP THROWS THE P25 SWITCH.

It was just about a month ago when I was listening to the usual high CBP traffic off the east coast on my new Astro equipment (better listening without MDC, OTAR, and encryption noise) and noticed a couple of weeks ago that traffic slowed down quite a bit. Strange absence of traffic, but maybe it was the Labor Day holiday slowdown coming up. I am still hearing some analog traffic on NET 28, 16, 1, 2, 12 and others, but just not nearly as much. Hardly nothing on the BP (220 dispatch) analog freqs, and what little there was sounded weird or noisy. I just summed it up to bad radio maintenance (business as usual). Been doing more radio programming on my new toys than searching, but did do some searching around my area on Labor Day when I get a new one with NAC 301. Just some data bursts (muted), but strong. Band opening? Anyway, I was on high alert with that NAC and put more effort into searching this week.

Come Tuesday morning the doors blew wide open. New P25 frequencies all over the place with both BP/ICE 220 traffic and some Charlie 100 CBP traffic. Did some extensive driving around the State for work and took a lot of notes. It would appear that most of the analog 163/168 Mhz BP (220) traffic was reframed to new frequencies on the upper part of the band. NAC 301 looks like SE FL repeaters, NAC 302 is NE FL, NAC 303 is Tampa and SW FL, and NAC 304 is Central FL covering Orlando and East. The system sounds good (when ITC) and mimics the old system somewhat by transmitting on multiple repeater frequencies at the same time, but not all the time. The big difference I hear is that Charlie 100 CBP traffic is now on this system with 220 BP traffic. Unknown if different talk groups are used, and much more needs to be analyzed to know DNET names and inputs. This is breaking news, so updates will follow.

Here is the raw data for what I have and what I suspect so far:

172.2375 NAC 301 (confirmed Ft. Pierce repeater site)
170.7250 NAC 301 (same freq as old Palm Beach analog repeater but now P25)
170.6000 NAC 301 (suspected Hillsborough repeater site…need to verify)

169.9375 NAC 302 (heard near Green Cove Springs SW of Jacksonville)

172.7125 NAC 303 (Tampa units strong in St. Petersburg)
169.6000 NAC 303 (silent hits in Clearwater…real data or image?…need more)

170.9875 NAC 304 (Orlando units…suspected Ft. Drum repeater site)
172.8625 NAC 304 (suspected St. Cloud / Brevard repeater site)
170.6750 NAC 304 (suspected Osteen repeater Site)

173.5000 NAC 325 (on 3/24/11 near Yulee, FL GA line…now makes sense)

Some other notable recent hits:

164.6500 (USS Tango) NAC 001, 301, 167, 293 (all this morning! what is going on here? Playing with new radio channels???)

171.9625 NAC 282 (all ENC S-5 in Palm Beach up to Stuart where it was weaker. Could this be the first CBP P25 repeater in my area?)

170.8625 NAC 156 (strong in Tampa and heard out to Lake Wales, FL. DEA?)

170.8500 NAC 864 (heard multiple times around Orlando…USMS?)

The search and data collection will be ongoing until I cover all of FL. If anyone can search and provide valid input, please do. I did not see any Florida updates for this here or on Chris P’s blog. This is pretty cutting-edge and a good time to pickup on new channels. What CBP will do to reframe, I’m not sure. Orlando had NAC 301 testing on 165.2375 for over a year now, but so far I have not heard any P25 on the analog NET freqs. TAC21 164.9625 has had simplex NAC 301 traffic for a while, but not that often. Analog CBP traffic is so slow I have to believe they are somewhere, but have not heard anything other than that unknown 171.9625 NAC 282 in Palm Beach County. More to come!

Phil :cool:
 

ericcarlson

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164.6500 (USS Tango) NAC 001, 301, 167, 293 (all this morning! what is going on here? Playing with new radio channels???)

Are you using a Uniden HP scanner? I regularly get bogus hits in the discovery logs with wrong NACs like that (NACs that coincidentally match up with other freqs in the log). Especially if the hits are 0-seconds I would discount them.
 

ChrisP

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Thanks for the update, Phil. I had information on the CBP upgrades to the state of Florida a couple of years ago, but I was under a gag order. :)

I didn't get any new frequency information, so your post has been a great help. Looking forward to ID'ing some of these new NETs!

- Chris
 

ChrisP

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Are you using a Uniden HP scanner? I regularly get bogus hits in the discovery logs with wrong NACs like that (NACs that coincidentally match up with other freqs in the log). Especially if the hits are 0-seconds I would discount them.

I see that effect on my GRE radios as well. Makes for some interesting logs sometimes...

- Chris
 

JSTARS03

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CBP AIR

You can also add these as very active in Florida

168.83750 CBP Air 1 P25 NAC 293
168.96250 CBP Air 2 P25 NAC 293
169.16250 CBP Air 4 P25 NAC 293
169.26250 CBP Air 3 P25 NAC 293
169.38750 CBP Air 5 P25 NAC 293

Lots of encryption but also some clear
I have logged every one of them.

JSTARS03
 

ecps92

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WoW !! what a news flash !

Glad to hear your still scanning and in SEARCH Phil

NEWS FLASH: FLORIDA BP THROWS THE P25 SWITCH.

It was just about a month ago when I was listening to the usual high CBP traffic off the east coast on my new Astro equipment (better listening without MDC, OTAR, and encryption noise) and noticed a couple of weeks ago that traffic slowed down quite a bit. Strange absence of traffic, but maybe it was the Labor Day holiday slowdown coming up. I am still hearing some analog traffic on NET 28, 16, 1, 2, 12 and others, but just not nearly as much. Hardly nothing on the BP (220 dispatch) analog freqs, and what little there was sounded weird or noisy. I just summed it up to bad radio maintenance (business as usual). Been doing more radio programming on my new toys than searching, but did do some searching around my area on Labor Day when I get a new one with NAC 301. Just some data bursts (muted), but strong. Band opening? Anyway, I was on high alert with that NAC and put more effort into searching this week.
...
 
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ecps92

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I would venture the other NACS are flase hits, seen latency in the radios clearing out the que when moving onto other frequencies resulting in flase hits.

NEWS FLASH: FLORIDA BP THROWS THE P25 SWITCH.


Some other notable recent hits:

164.6500 (USS Tango) NAC 001, 301, 167, 293 (all this morning! what is going on here? Playing with new radio channels???)


Phil :cool:
 

SOFA_KING

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Are you using a Uniden HP scanner? I regularly get bogus hits in the discovery logs with wrong NACs like that (NACs that coincidentally match up with other freqs in the log). Especially if the hits are 0-seconds I would discount them.

I think you may be right on this one. Tango data bursts hit me up here very weak, and I see what you are pointing out, but only on signals with no bar readings. The NAC carries over from the last solid hit. My GRE scanners used to do that until Don fixed the firmware. No more issue with that for quite a while now. But my log with this freq on a solid GRE hit indicated NAC 293 around Orlando one time this year, so listen Digital CSQ and watch those NACs. You never know, especially these days.

Thanks!
 

SOFA_KING

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Hi Chris!

Thanks for posting. I'll do my best to report solid data. I'm also getting PM's and exchanging notes with some others now that I started the thread. I have not heard the "DNET" term on any of the radio traffic SO FAR. Neither has another forum member in the Panhandle. Some channel numbers, but that is hard to confirm when the traffic is linked to multiple repeaters. Sometimes it is linked, and other times not. I heard one guy key up a few times and then call 220 for radio checks over and over. I suspect on different channels in his radio, but they all came out up here on my local repeater. One time he said "on channel 4". He was down in Palm Beach (makes sense...this was channel 3 up here on analog).

This system is almost just like BP's (220) old analog system in design and reuse. I have seen the BP Astro capable Quantar equipment at some of my sites for a while now, so I suspect they just retuned and switched on P25. But what about CBP? Any thoughts on this?

BP analog was not my favorite system design. Most of the P25 traffic I hear on this system now is 220 traffic. Off hours C100 is answering BP traffic. Yet the known major CBP analog systems are now dead except for a little NET1 and NET12 weak distant traffic. Not much daytime C100 traffic on this new system either, so where are they? Will the old CBP system transform and show up on new freqs, or will this system carry both now? Any chance they went Phase II? Maybe too early to tell. Might need to open up my search to analog.

BTW - 169.6000 NAC 303 came in Lima Charlie last night on a band opening to Tampa.

So did 170.1000 NAC 303 during the same opening. That is a new one.

And I found a recording of 164.6000 NAC 301 I captured "in the red" near Athens, GA on 1/21/14.

P

Thanks for the update, Phil. I had information on the CBP upgrades to the state of Florida a couple of years ago, but I was under a gag order. :)

I didn't get any new frequency information, so your post has been a great help. Looking forward to ID'ing some of these new NETs!

- Chris
 
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SOFA_KING

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Thanks. I had most of those, and the strange thing is I heard (solid) TSA N001,002,003 traffic on some of these around airports. I'm very aware of image issues, and I do not think these were images. For one, the traffic was different than the known TSA channels. And it was on rare ocasion and not every time I visit these areas. So what the heck is that all about? :question:

You can also add these as very active in Florida

168.83750 CBP Air 1 P25 NAC 293
168.96250 CBP Air 2 P25 NAC 293
169.16250 CBP Air 4 P25 NAC 293
169.26250 CBP Air 3 P25 NAC 293
169.38750 CBP Air 5 P25 NAC 293

Lots of encryption but also some clear
I have logged every one of them.

JSTARS03
 

SOFA_KING

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WoW !! what a news flash !

Glad to hear your still scanning and in SEARCH Phil

Hi Bill!

Not dead...yet (laughs). I still lurk. Been DMRing and P25ing here lately with new toys (some from "our friends"). My SUV is so loaded full of radios that there is no room for passengers...at least up front. I think with this reframing thing we should all be in full-time search for a long time to come. It is going to be a blast, but a whole lot of work managing it all. This will take years! I may need to upgrade my database program to manage the old and new. It is good to view the full history...even going back to the early 70's.

P
 

ecps92

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Yes, TSA is uging both P25 and Analog on some of those channels, for the xRay machines. some CLR, some ENC - varies by Airport

Thanks. I had most of those, and the strange thing is I heard (solid) TSA N001,002,003 traffic on some of these around airports. I'm very aware of image issues, and I do not think these were images. For one, the traffic was different than the known TSA channels. And it was on rare ocasion and not every time I visit these areas. So what the heck is that all about? :question:
 

SCPD

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Far as I know cbp, and it's sister agencies are in process of throwing the southern regions into p25 from San Diego to miami. I have seen some not many agents carrying apx newer dual series portables. Rest with 2500series and 5000s. Did see before a couple stragglers 3000s at a check point outside hudspeth tx.
 

SOFA_KING

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Far as I know cbp, and it's sister agencies are in process of throwing the southern regions into p25 from San Diego to miami. I have seen some not many agents carrying apx newer dual series portables. Rest with 2500series and 5000s. Did see before a couple stragglers 3000s at a check point outside hudspeth tx.

Interesting. This might have been the last to go. So how has the CBP system changed out west? Did it move frequencies. Here in FL the two systems were very much different in design. CBP was much mor organized than BP and ICE. But I wonder what CBP is doing with the old analog system. Is there any Phase II on these systems out there?
 

SCPD

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I know they upped the freqs to around 170 mostly and all the analog seems to have stopped in El Paso sector areas. Maybe some minor chatter in analog but 99 percent time I only heard digital. As for phase 2 I'm not sure. I've heard p25 clear and half aes. I'd imagine majority is still phase 1 modulation since majority uses phase 1 equipment. Unless they hand out phase 2 equip to a whole division at briefing I can only see them .using phase 1 for now unless specialized divisions use phase2. Far as I know it's phase 1 still.
 

kayn1n32008

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I know they upped the freqs to around 170 mostly and all the analog seems to have stopped in El Paso sector areas. Maybe some minor chatter in analog but 99 percent time I only heard digital. As for phase 2 I'm not sure. I've heard p25 clear and half aes. I'd imagine majority is still phase 1 modulation since majority uses phase 1 equipment. Unless they hand out phase 2 equip to a whole division at briefing I can only see them .using phase 1 for now unless specialized divisions use phase2. Far as I know it's phase 1 still.


Phase 2 is only available on trunk systems, not conventional.


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SCPD

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If I recall they use to utilize uhf and vhf trunk systems. Not many but biggest facilities I thought did with the other 3 letter agencies they worked with.
 

SOFA_KING

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I know they upped the freqs to around 170 mostly and all the analog seems to have stopped in El Paso sector areas. Maybe some minor chatter in analog but 99 percent time I only heard digital. As for phase 2 I'm not sure. I've heard p25 clear and half aes. I'd imagine majority is still phase 1 modulation since majority uses phase 1 equipment. Unless they hand out phase 2 equip to a whole division at briefing I can only see them .using phase 1 for now unless specialized divisions use phase2. Far as I know it's phase 1 still.

Copy that. So did the two systems merge into one, or is 220 traffic on different freqs than C100 traffic?

Sorry to bug you about it, but the trend started there first. :cool:
 
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